1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for the production of fabrics, and more especially to the production of multi-ply fabrics, wherein the fabrics are made completely, or at least predominantly, from extremely delicate technical grade fibers such as carbon fibers, glass fibers or the like. The invention furthermore relates to a loom used to make such fabrics and to the fabrics themselves.
2. The Prior Art
British Pat. No. 2,066,308 describes three-dimensional fabrics made of carbon fibers or glass fibers. There has also been proposed a method for weaving carbon fibers wherein impacts are avoided so as to take into account their extreme brittleness, which is caused by their temperature coefficient of near zero.
Furthermore, European Pat. No. 00 56 351 describes a sheet-like fabric consisting of high-strength material, such as metal fibers, carbon fibers, aramide fibers or mixtures thereof. This sheet fabric is made into a particular shape.
In known systems the result produced has been unsatisfactory because after each filler thread has been inserted into the shed in a conventional loom it has been beaten. In this regard, the dents of the reed rub along and damage the warp threads both during forward and backward motion thereof. In the case of high or very high filler thread counts, there is a proportionality between the respective stroke of the reed, the warp, the filler thread count and the stroke of the sley.
In order to reduce rubbing damage to the delicate warp material, it has been proposed to weave post-twisted warp material or warp material with fibers wrapped around the warp material. However, this results in a reduction in relative strength to the entire fabric, which in many cases is not acceptable.
The object of the present invention is to avoid the above-mentioned disadvantages and to devise a method and an apparatus for creating a fabric whose delicate warp threads have not been impaired during manufacture, even when there is a high filler thread count.